Israel Loses Support Over Attack

There has been widespread backing of Israel for decades among Western liberals arising out of a revulsion over what happened in the Holocaust. But Israel stands to lose many members of that section of support over its treatment of Palestinians.

Until now, Israel’s bellicose behavior in the Middle East has not excited this kind of opposition, but Israel may now be losing some of its longtime, hard-core supporters if it does not extend to the Palestinians the same humane treatment it has for a long time requested for itself.

Support is always extended on an individual basis.

But, speaking generally, I think this new loss of backers will leave it with four classes of allies: many members of the global Jewish community; members of NATO who side with the United States; American neoconservatives, for whom Israel has provided the service of researching, developing, and testing weapons which the United States cabal feels itself unable to develop (such as depleted-uranium weapons, first used, as far as I’m aware, in the Six Day War of 1973 and used again in South Lebanon) and fundamentalist Christians who follow the prophecies of Revelations and other Biblical sources.

Nobel-winning Elders deplore Gaza flotilla attack

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/international/article442925.ece

JOHANNESBURG, May 31, 2010

The Elders group of past and present world leaders, including former South African president Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, on Monday condemned as “completely inexcusable” the deadly Israeli attack on a flotilla carrying aid for Gaza.

At least 10 people are reported to have been killed when Israeli commandos raided the boats on Monday in an operation that has drawn international condemnation.

“The Elders have condemned the reported killing by Israeli forces of more than a dozen people who were attempting to deliver relief supplies to the Gaza Strip by sea,” the 12-member group said in a statement issued in Johannesburg, where it met over the weekend.

The group, which was launched by Mr. Mandela on his birthday in 2007 to try to solve some of the world’s most intractable conflicts, called for a “full investigation” of the incident and urged the UN Security Council “to debate the situation with a view to mandating action to end the closure of the Gaza Strip.” “This tragic incident should draw the world’s attention to the terrible suffering of Gaza’s 1.5 million people, half of whom are children under the age of 18,” the group said.

Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza was not only “one of the world’s greatest human rights violations” and “illegal” under international law, it was also “counterproductive” because it empowered extremists in the Palestinian territory, they said.

The Elders includes six Nobel peace prize winners – former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, former US president Jimmy Carter, detained Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Mr. Mandela and Tutu.

Reval Reporting

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